direct_instructionfandomcom-20200214-history
Direct Instruction Wiki
Introduction The first roots of Direct Instruction goes back all the way to 1967, when the government of the USA introduced Project Follow Through. Project Follow Through was an experiment to provide educational services to preschoolers which have a disadvantage. There were seventeen different teaching methods tested, where Direct Instruction won hands down. Project Follow Through was a result of the No Child Left Behind act which states that only scientifically founded teaching methods were allow to get subsidies. Thus marking a start of the many researches done in order to improve teaching methods. (Ayres, 2008) 17 different teaching models were tested, on 79000 children in low income areas for 20 years. This was the largest education studies ever done. The Direct Instruction model is a model which explicitly states the instructions for the teacher. There is no pre-work before each lesson for the teacher and a signal (such as a tap with a pen on the book) indicates that the children have to answer. An example of Direct Instruction in classrooms: http://youtu.be/3cwODCQ9BnU The main critique given on the method is that it is “teacher proof”, the teacher has no input themselves making them feel robotic (Ayres, 2008). Other critiques on the research done by Engelmas includes nonrandom as-signment of subjects, unclear definition of treatment etc. There are more versions of Direct Instruction but the main focus lays on Arithmetic and Reading. Also known as DISTAR (Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading) __TOC__ The Main Question Direct Instruction was introduced as a scientific method for teaching preschoolers. Now it can be implemented for students of other ages making the main question more general: What is the best performing teaching method? This can be answered scientifically, but the results will be different if answered by teachers, as the view on what the best is differs. Why? The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) which was part of War on poverty by President Lyndon, it was the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education. (http://www.k12.wa.us/esea/). ESEA states that only scientific based methods will get subsidies, so this was the start of Project Follow through which an experiment was to help disadvantaged children in elementary schools. This was the start of the intensive researches done on education. The ESEA is now known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Direct Instruction Papers In this part we will discuss papers about Direct Instruction. Hattie, J. Hattie, J. with Visible Learning; a synthesis of over 800 meta-analysis relating to achievement (London; Routledge, 2009). Hattie performs a meta-analysis. This means that all relevant literature is combined to get overall results. Hattie combines 52,637 studies and provides 146,142 effect sizes. The studies are based on many millions of students (Hattie, 2009). Data of different school stages are combined. The meta-analysis uses the effect-size the measure the effectiveness of a method in teaching. Hattie (2009) identifies everything above an effect-size (d) of 0.4 as a desirable effect. 0.4 is the mean effect-size of all the studies. This can be seen in figure 1. Hattie (2009) states that although some methods might have an effect-size below 0.4, this does not mean that they are not effective. They might be effective for some measures, but not for others. It could also be that they are not used in the right way, or not used for the right children. The focus of his book is however on: how do we take those methods that work? There are so many, we can't use them all. So which work and which do not? There are many that work, but which work best? To structure this question Hattie (2009) indicates the effects that do not work (reverse effects), the ones that have a too low effect, and the ones that have an effect above average. This can be seen in figure 2, which is made by Atherton (2013). To assess Direct Instruction, Hattie (2009) uses 304 relevant studies. As can be seen the effect size of direct instruction in this meta-analysis is 0.59. This is an effect size of above 0.4. It does need to be said that direct instruction is only at rank 25. There are thus many more effects that have a higher effect-size. Some of these include: micro-teaching, classroom behavioral and feedback. Rank 20-29 can be seen in figure 3. The effects of rank 1-130 can be visited on http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/media-speeches/guestlectures/pdfs/tgls-hattie.pdf 'Borman G.D.' Borman, G.D., Hewes, G.M., Overman, L.T. and Brown, S. (2003). Comprehensive school reform and achievement: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 73, 125-230. Borman Hewes, Overman and Brown (2003) did a research to school reform and achievement. This was also a meta-analysis. They combined 29 studies. They looked at different teaching methods like Direct Instruction, School Development Program and Success for All. In general Direct Instruction had the highest average effect-size, namely somewhere between (depending on what kind of studies they used) d=0.15-0.21. Compared to 0.05-0.15 for School Development Program and 0.08-0.18 for Success for All. There were many other methods tested, but the authors say themselves that the evidence is not as strong as for DI and the other two methods, because there was less data available. Some methods have only 1 or 2 observations available. Schweinhart, L. L. Schweinhart, L. L., Weikart, D. P., Larner, M.B. (1986). Consequences of three preschool curriculum models through age 15. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 1, 15-45. The authors study the effects of three education methods on three groups of 18 youth: High/Scope model, Distar (DI) model and a model in the nursery school tradition. The students who follows these programs where interviewed at age 15 and the results show that their IQ rose dramatically. The authors conclude that all these programs helped the students perform better. However they found a negative impact of the Distar model on delinquency and social behavior. The students who attended the Distar model showed twice as many delinquent acts and five times more acts of poverty violence. The Distar group also showed poorer relations with their families, less participation in sport, fewer job appointments and less reaching out to other for personal problems. The authors say themselves that the research was done on a small sample group and are not definitive. The Distar group showed the highest IQ increase. The authors say in their results that Distar showed the only statistical significant result on IQ increase. The difference between the programs and their results on IQ were not statistically significant. The Adult Performance Level Survey showed poor performance of the Distar group. This test is about solving real-life problems and the ability to cope with the cognitive demands of adult life. Two indicators were approaching statistically significant results for DI, namely occupational knowledge and writing. The students from the Distar groups further more performed more delinquency acts. 'Klahr, D.' Klahr, D., Nigam, M. (2004). The equivalence of in early science instruction: effects of direct instruction and discovery learning. Psychological Science, 15, 661-667. The authors performed a study with 112 third-and fourth grade students. They measured the relative performance of discovery learning and direct instruction at two points in the learning process: during the initial acquisition of the basic cognitive object and during the subsequent transfer and application of the basic skill. This was done by using scientific posters. They found that more children learned from direct instruction than from discovery learning. Also they found that when asked to make broader scientific judgments, the children who learned about experimental design through direct instruction performed as well as children who discovered the method on their own. The authors say their findings challenge the presumed superiority of using discovery learning to teach children basic scientific skills. The results show that many more children taught with direct instruction became masters in the poster-making compared to those taught with discovery learning. The results of the masters and none master students were somewhat higher for those who were taught with discovery learning, compared to those who were taught with direct instruction. This can be seen in figure 4. The authors say the higher grades for those learned with discovery learning were marginally higher and wonder how important this is. 'Dean, D.' Dean, D. Jr., Kuhn, D. (2006). Direct instruction vs. Discovery: the long view. Teachers College, 91, 384-397. The article is a response the article of Klahr and Nigam. They use the same setup and the same age group, but this research looks at the results over a longer period of time and over different equivalent tasks. They used three groups of 15 fourth-grade students. One group engaged in work on 12 session in 10 weeks working on problems that required the control-of-variables strategy for effective solution. Another group engaged in the same activity, preceding by a session involving direct instruction on the control-of-variables strategy. The third group received only the initial direct instruction without sub-sequence engagement and practice. The authors say that direct instruction was neither a necessary or sufficient factor for robust acquisition or performance over time. The authors conclude that for DI to be successful there has to be regular practice (PR). But only regular practice seems to perform quite well on the long run. This can be seen in figure 5. ' ' Stockard, J. Stockard, J. (2010). Promoting Reading Achievement and Countering the‘‘Fourth-Grade Slump’’: The Impact of Direct Instruction on Reading Achievement in Fifth Grade. Journal of education for Students Places at Risk, 15, 218-240. The article examines the effect of Direct instruction, Open Court or a mixture of reading curricula on student achievement. The group started very large (17.000 students), but many students leaving school, the end group consisted of 4.572 students. As a side note, students left schools over all groups (DI, OC and mixture), but DI students were somewhat less likely to leave school. 30% of the students stayed in the same school, compared to 26% of the other students. Results indicate that students in schools using DI had significantly greater gains in both reading vocabulary and comprehension than students in the two other settings and that their average levels of achievement in fifth grade were above the national norms, thus countering the fourth-grade slump. The results show that the students from a low-income large urban school had statically greater benefits from DI than from the other programs. Even though the DI-group started with lower scores on student achievement. The authors say that it is important to replicate these findings and especially to look at longer periods of time of student achievement. 'Engelmann, S.' Research on Direct Instruction: 25 Years Beyond DISTAR is a response to the negative views on Direct Instruction, where they show the effectiveness of Direct Instruction and that it still holds since 1964. Engelmann and Adams conducted a meta-analysis of 34 controlled studies that looked at the effectiveness of the DI programs. The results are shown above. (ECF, 2011) Category:Browse